One Last Hurrah...Kind Of...

Two days.  School starts in TWO DAYS.  We are frantically trying to cram as much summer fun into these next two days before it vanishes for another nine months.  We've had a high-low week this past week.  Awesome high points, and really crappy low points.  REALLY CRAPPY.

So I'll start with the awesome.  Tuesday we loaded up the van and the kids one more time and headed slightly west, young man, to see Brandon's sisters and their families for a couple of days in the Austin area.  We decided to swing by the Blue Bell factory in Brenham just in case they weren't too crowded and could get our little family in for a quick tour and a scoop of ice cream.  

We were in luck.  We walked in at 11:40, and were touring at 11:50.  Nice.

After the tour, we each picked out our scoop of ice cream (mine was Strawberry Summer Pie, in case you were wondering) and chowed down on our pre-lunch snack.

Aidan got rainbow sherbet.

Harper finished her rainbow sherbet in record time, then proceeded to mooch ice cream off of everyone else.

Harper's fortunate to have such sweet brothers and sister.

By this point they were a little "over" smiling for pictures, and we were all ready to head out for some late lunch.

Brandon got a recommendation from one of the Blue Bell employees, and we headed off the the little airport in Brenham to eat at the Southern Flyer.

Aidan found what he wanted for his birthday parked in the parking lot right outside the door at the restaurant.

The Southern Flyer did not disappoint.  We sat on their outdoor patio, which was screened in on all sides, sitting right next to one of the 4 giant air conditioners that were on the patio.  Perfect :)

Harper and Emmy read an airplane magazine with their Daddy

While Dane read a Wimpy Kid book while he waited for his food.

Every now and then my kids are really, really sweet to one another, and this was one of those days.

Emerson was reunited with her beloved gravy at the Southern Flyer, and dipped every single piece of her food in the gravy before eating it.

Last Thanksgiving, we were driving back home from my parents' house, and stopped by a Texas Burger for lunch.  Emerson ended up with a chicken finger basket with gravy.  It did not occur to me that she may have never had gravy before that day.  She dipped her first little french fry in the gravy, ate it, and her world has never been the same since.  She immediately tapped me on the arm in that Texas Burger, leaned over to me and proclaimed, "Mom.  I found my dip."  She found her dip.  And I had no idea we had been looking for it.  But gravy is her dip.

We got to Aunt Val and Uncle Izzy's house Tuesday night, and had a wonderful reunion with all of the cousins.  The boys fell right into a wrestling match/football game combo, in between climbing this awesome climbing tree in the backyard.

It was all well and good and awesome until about 8:50 Wednesday morning, when Dane fell out of the awesome climbing tree and broke his left arm.  Yup.  Broke his left arm.  He ran into the house, cradling his bent-at-an-unnatural-angle left arm.  I loaded him up and headed to the ER.  After lots of morphine, some Ketamine sedation, and a talented ER doctor straightened his arm out, we loaded up a very sleepy Dane, ("this broken arm was better than the last broken arm because I had a better dream with the sleeping medicine this time.  I was a baby bumblebee, just flying around...") and headed back for a few more hours with the cousins.  I FINALLY got to meet baby Juliana and snuggle the sweet, sleepy baby.  When everyone was awake, fed, and in relatively good moods, we got all the kids dressed and went to a park for cousin pictures.  Sorry you broke your arm 4 hours ago, Dane, but it doesn't get you out of cousin pictures.

Please excuse the hospital arm bands on Dane's wrist.  I forgot to take them off.  Being that the chief baby-holder had one arm out of commission, Juliana wisely stayed in her carseat.  And it's a little spooky how much Aidan looks like Laurel.

We cut our trip a little short, and headed home after dinner Wednesday night.  We missed church and bowling Wednesday night, but figured we needed to get Dane-o back home so we could load him up on codeine and build him a pillow-fort in his bed to protect him from rolling bed-sharing brothers.  Yup.  The REALLY CRAPPY part of our summer.  :(  I'm trying to look for a bright side, at least Dane broke his arm at the end of a summer filled with fun and swimming and backyard football.  He will just be in a cast for the next 6-8 weeks, and out of PE for a couple of months past that, thanks to our uber-conservative crazy orthopedic.

And we're T-minus 2 days.